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Firefighter watches as a car is set ablaze in Ferguson. Credit: Associated Press

I remember May 1, 2011.

It was the day of what was suppossed to be the May Day protests, to raise awareness on workers rights and immigration. But what caught the attention of the national media was the self-proclaimed anarchists that went around downtown, dressed in clad black, smashing windows of prominent capitalist businesses.

This was when I was in community college still, working for school paper there. It was in Bremerton only an hour ferry ride away from the emerald city when I caught wind of the news. A photographer and I went there as soon as we could.

By the time we did got there, the action had settled and the window smashers had already been taken into custody. But there were still plenty of protesters around. What I noticed from these “anarchists”, though, was that their all black attire was speckled in the very logos and emblems of the capitalist giants they supposedly hated so much. All I could deduce was that perhaps they were complete hypoctites or that perhaps they didn’t understand what true anarchy was and only knew the sort of media take on what it is.

Although the actual protests took place, they were much overlooked by the earlier damage that was done, and many people by that point seemed to be more focused on the chaotic sort of demeanor rather than the actual focal point of workers rights; the media across the nation did the same.

What was apparent, that year and the year that followed, was that despite what the message was supposed to be, it’s so often easily lost among the masses.

Earlier tonight, a St. Louis grand jury brought no criminal charges against Darren Wilson, the Ferguson ploice officer that shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, back in August.

What started off as tense but peaceful protests, escalated into riots, with already a significant amount of damage done to the area.

There are photos coming in from Ferguson (and now even from Seattle, Oakland and other cities) as we watch it all unfold, and if one were to not pay close enough attention, it could be passed off as something from Syria or Ukraine. But it’s not, this is happening on our own soil, and its because so many Americans out there have left reason and logic back home so they can bring their anger, frustration and indifference to the streets.

Unfortunately, there was not enough evidence to really lay criminal charges on Wilson. It also did not help that the witnesses had varrying and restructured accounts of what happened the night of the shooting; it did not help that social media bottled-necked any incoming reports that could have been further investigated by law inforcement officials; and it did not help that media would take any unconfirmed report they could get to at least keeo the discussion going on their networks, and further perpetuating this incident as one based on race.

And yet people right now all across the web are saying that “the system” – the judicial system – has failed. But there was no judge behind the decision to not indict, it was a jury of peers, normal Americans randomly selected to do their civic duty. The point of a jury is to objectively look at the facts and evidence that is available from law from enforcement investigation, simply put. What a jury’s job not to do is follow the popular opinion among the people and media.

Race in America has been an issue and topic of discussion now for well over 100 years and it’s true that dispite such laws as civil rights, people of color still struggle to find equality and non-bias in several areas of this country. But this doesn’t mean that everytime a person of color, especially a very young one, is killed by a white person, that race was the motivation that led to their death.

Race in our country is something that is so easy for us to get fired up about, something that is so easy for anyone to point their finger at the police and accuse, “racial bias” “malicious intent”. Because yes, this has happened many times before.

But time and time again, so many of us rather than transcend, bury ourselves into further into ignorance. Rather than ask questions, we take to the streets pointing fingers and blaming the police or the government.

We blame the police without taking thought that someday, we may gravely need their help; we burn the American flag for the death of one without taking into consideration the millions who have died for that very flag; we set stores on fire where we used to buy groceries and have small talk with our neighbors.

The combination of ignorance with double standards is a malignant mix that will bury us as a nation.

Racism still very much exists in this nation but so does ignorance, a fog that is so deep seated among so many of us that it is dangerous to this nations well being. If we’re going to progress and succeed together and as one nation, we first need to learn to take a step back before we can take a step forward.

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Well it’s been a good semester! I have a learned a lot using these various Adobe tools and have already started applying the skills I have learned from the class in the newsroom! I have to say that I especially enjoyed working on Premiere editing, there’s something to the tediousness of it that ruses me.

If there is any application that I found really challenging it would be Illustrator; making a logo from scratch using only shapes is pretty difficult. And honestly I don’t see why learning Illustrator would be a more relevant that learning something like InDesign, where you’re designing an entire page. Maybe it’s just because that is for print. either way, I really enjoyed learning all the multimedia tools and hope all of you have a great summer!

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Allllllright, it’s that time folks! For this final draft I made several needed modifications from the rough draft. I realigned the introduction text and added gradient stroke to help make it more visible. I decided to keep Michelle’s voice as the introducing narrative because I feel that it flows into the point that she is making very nicely.

I also cut out some of the b-film stuff such as the mall and the waving american flag (not that I’m unpatriotic) so that the story could get sooner to the point. This time around I have actually added narration to video as well as audio and video transitions that make the whole video flow a lot smoother. And one thing that I made sure to do was adjust my audio levels, the background music is now not so overbearing. Thanks for the great semester!

Scene 3: Scene 4:
Narration
Introduces Calley Hair, EIC Narration
Apart from strutting the news room and working with staff, Calley Hair the editor in chief of the daily evergreen discusses some of her other duties.
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Evergreener looking over prinouts Video/Picture

Scene 3: Scene 4:
Narration
None Narration
Alright that was michelle fredrickson and calley hair discussing two very tough jobs at the daily evergreen. I hope all of you found this informative.
Video/Picture
Video/Picture
Matthew conducting phone interview

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Keeping up with the theme, I interviewed the The Daily Evergreen News Editor for this rough draft. My initial plan was to also interview the Editor-in-Chief but its hard to catch someone as busy as her! But no worries, I’ve got something scheduled. This really is just a rough draft for what I really want to do. My plan is to have this at least 4 minutes long with about 2 more people included in the mix. Something really awesome that I plan on doing for this is a time lapse of the office during production night. Things get… interesting. I got a little tweaks to make to this such as adjusting the flow and volume of the background music. I’m not sure yet but I might try to add in another track as well.

I also plan on making some more five frame shots to give a more fluid feel to the final cut of the video. Another plan I have is to have a sliding transition whenever someone who is speaking comes on to screen.

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The most difficult part of my refining my final draft was the actual refining process. Going through twenty minutes of audio can be quite tedious. I decided to go with the more ethical discussion from my two interviews with my fellow Evergreeners. The music I used in the background is from SoundCloud creative commons, the song is called Nebula by World Beyond. I felt the ambient build up was perfect for this type of audio story, the trick was fitting it into place so it didn’t come across as cheesy.

Nathan Howard, the Managing Editor and Zack Briggs, the Former ASWSU Reporter. I felt these two gentlemen were going to be the best to interview for my subject considering their long background at the paper.

Since one of the main focuses of this over-arching project is the day-to-day challenges student newspapers face, I wanted to discuss some of the ethical challenges that come up to editors as well as some of the challenges that deadline reporters face (getting their story in within a short amount of time after an event takes place).

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So for my rough draft I have conducted an interview with two people from The daily Evergreen. Nathan Howard, the Managing Editor and Zack Briggs, the Former ASWSU Reporter. I felt these two gentlemen were going to be the best to interview for my subject considering their long background at the paper.

Since one of the main focuses of this over-arching project is the day-to-day challenges student newspapers face, I wanted to discuss some of the ethical challenges that come up to editors as well as some of the challenges that deadline reporters face (getting their story in within a short amount of time after an event takes place).

One of the difficulties I ran into with this draft was interview time; I have close to 20 minutes of audio even after my editing. Another issue that I have, that I intend on resolving by the final draft is background music. I couldn’t find anything that was suitable so far that wasn’t completely cheesy but will find something fitting by the end of this section.

So far I have to say this is my favorite portion of class; I have an odd interest in scanning audio files for minor details such as overused “ums” or “like’s”. I plan on making the audio for these interview for my final draft more crisp and more colorful with music. Hopefully, I can figure out how to loop music so that I can have a more streamlined audio content for this section.